


the curious case of the sleepwalking detective

by simplyclockwork



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon compliant up to and including season 4, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Dialogue from the original Pilot, Gift Fic, Hurt and comfort, Johnlock - Freeform, Light Angst, M/M, Mention of false suicide, Mentions of Injuries, PTSD, Protective John, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sleepwalking, Soft Ending, Trauma, mentions of Reichenbach, minor injury, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24095077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyclockwork/pseuds/simplyclockwork
Summary: Sherlock sleepwalks and his nightmares worsen the condition. Strangely enough, his nightmares bring him and John closer.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 106





	the curious case of the sleepwalking detective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alienkid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienkid/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Загадочная история о лунатике-детективе](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24339700) by [Little_Unicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Unicorn/pseuds/Little_Unicorn)



> Prompted by @hunninutqueerio from an original prompt on Tumblr: 
> 
> _Sherlock sleepwalks. He’s always sleepwalked, and John has always been a witness of it. He would stumble out of his room after he passed out post-case and mumble something unintelligible (and very questionable) before John gently turned him around and guided him back to his room before he could do any harm. It wasn’t a common occurrence, but happened often enough that most everyone that was close to Sherlock knew about it._
> 
> _After everything with Eurus and Mary and god knows what else, after John brings Rosie back to 221B with him, it gets more frequent. With the nightmares of all of the newfound trauma comes the sleepwalking too. The nightmares he can hide. The sleepwalking too, really. That is until he dreams of Reichenbach and falls down the stairs._

Sherlock has always sleepwalked. In the early days, before Sherlock’s ‘suicide,’ before Mary and Eurus, John lost count of how many times Sherlock wobbled into the sitting room, mumbling strange words and speaking in tongues. Sometimes it was funny. Others, it was alarming, to say the least. Once, Sherlock wandered from his bedroom to serenade John with the opera,  _ Pelléas et Mélisande _ , sung in the original French with Sherlock’s sleepy, deep voice. During another episode, he proceeded to dump (thankfully) cold tea over John’s head.  But mostly, Sherlock wandered into the sitting room or to where John had passed out at the kitchen table. There, he would stand and mumble odd phrases and sentence fragments until John gently guided him back to his bed.

After he moves back to 221B with Rosie and the memory of his dead wife and shared trauma in tow, John briefly forgets about Sherlock’s habit. Things fall into a routine, the two of them dancing around barely-healed wounds of the past while solving cases and co-raising John’s young daughter. It’s not like before, not perfect but near enough for a man like John, who, when he first met Sherlock, had been near the end of his rope. 

With his life settling into something comfortable, John finds himself beginning to look forward to what the future holds. Sure, 221B is often a borderline deathtrap for his infant daughter, and John wonders what they’ll do when Rosie grows up and needs her own room, but these are things for tomorrow and next week. Not the here and now, back at Sherlock’s side, working things out between the two of them. 

John is happy. Or, near enough. 

Content. 

Then Sherlock begins to sleepwalk again, wandering slow and unsteady into the living room, murmuring things like Mary, CAM and Eurus. He whimpers  _ gun, Mycroft, John, not John, _ and the words break John’s heart. 

Every time, without fail, he guides Sherlock back to bed. John soothes him under the sheets and leaves to sit in the dark bedroom upstairs, listening to Rosie’s soft breathing and staring into the dark with demons dancing in his eyes.  In the mornings, Sherlock never seems to remember his sleepwalking. John comments on the tired look of his skin and face, only to be brushed off. He lets it rest. If Sherlock wants to talk, he will. If he doesn’t, John isn’t willing to force him.

Every morning, John feeds his daughter and watches Sherlock from the corner of his eyes, like the detective is a walking, ticking timebomb without a visible countdown.

***

Sherlock’s nightmares are getting worse. After Serbia, they were an annoyance. Waking up in the throes of sweaty shakes is no one’s idea of a good time. For a man like Sherlock, who abhors sleep already, the nightmares deepen his distaste into hatred.  After Eurus, everything is worse. Every time Sherlock closes his eyes, lets his brain go offline long enough to drift, it happens. 

The gun is back in his hand and John is in front of him, pinned by the sights, his chest exploding outward when Sherlock, repeatedly, makes the wrong decision. Chooses himself over the bravest and best man he has ever known. A man who closes his eyes with the stoic strength of the soldier and tells Sherlock not to miss.

If he doesn’t put a bullet in John, then his faithful blogger drowns in the old well. Sherlock wakes with the feeling of water in his lungs, of his hands grasping and desperate, trying to push air into John’s limp body with the both of them below the surface.  Sometimes it’s a kiss goodbye. Others, it’s a pathetic attempt at CPR. 

There is never enough oxygen in Sherlock’s lungs to save the only man who matters. 

John moves back to Baker Street, and it helps for a while. Still, some nights Sherlock wakes with his lips cold and blue, a fist shoved against his teeth to keep the screams in his throat from filling the air. 

At breakfast after such nights, John comments on the shadows under Sherlock’s eyes, the pale cast to his face. Sherlock waves his concerns away with irritation and feigned strength. John doesn’t know, can’t know. Not now, when things are just getting back to normal. A new normal, granted, but a normal nonetheless. 

Everything seems fine until a man holds John at gunpoint down a dark alley. In true John Watson fashion, Sherlock’s loyal soldier disarms and neutralizes the would-be-shooter.  Afterwards, Sherlock shakes and shakes until John forces a shock blanket around his shoulders, despite Sherlock’s repeated assertations that he is fine. John doesn’t press, but his eyes are dark and narrowed on Sherlock’s face, and Sherlock knows it is only a matter of time.

When he sleeps that night, he doesn’t dream of shooting John. To his surprise, he finds himself back on Bart’s roof. He is looking down on unforgiving concrete with Moriarty’s dying words whispering in his ears,  _...unless they see you jump. _

John’s voice rises tinny and small from the phone cast away behind him before it rings out in the air rushing past Sherlock’s face. 

_ SHERLOCK! _

The concrete is cold hardwood when Sherlock opens his eyes to the bottom of the black door on the first floor. His body feels stiff and aching, head ringing with the force of smacking against the ground.

A voice speaks, drifting down the stairs.

“Sherlock?”

***

The crash is loud but distant. To anyone else, including his slumbering daughter, it would be easy to miss. To John, locked in a permanent state of battle-readiness by a PTSD diagnosis and three years spent in an active warzone, it is as loud as gunfire inside his head. 

He lurches up into a sitting position, heart hammering in his chest. Before he can take in his dark surroundings, he is up and moving, clattering down the stairs toward where his adrenaline-soaked brain guides him. 

The sitting room is empty, dark with the faint glow of streetlights through the windows. Feet skidding on the hardwood, John darts down the hall and checks Sherlock’s bedroom.

Empty bed. 

With the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears like a raging waterfall, John swallows a sudden tightness in his throat and moves out into the stairwell. When he looks down the stairs, Sherlock is crumpled at the bottom with blood in his hair.  Instantly, John is thrown back to a parking lot and the sick crack of bone. Blood and wide, staring eyes in a pale face. Bile rises in his throat, threatening to retch from his tightly clenched mouth and Sherlock groans, shifting slowly. 

“Sherlock?”

The air rushes back into John’s lungs, and he thunders down the stairs, no longer frozen with the image of Sherlock outside of Bart’s in his eyes. 

“John?"

“Shh, it’s okay.” Flicking on a lamp and dropping to his knees, John smoothes Sherlock’s hair back from his brow. There is blood, yes, but not as much as his panicked mind had imagined. Just a small cut on Sherlock’s forehead, likely from striking one of the stairs on his way down. Sherlock blinks owlishly at him, eyes wide and disoriented. John’s chest feels tight, and he squeezes Sherlock’s shoulder gently. “You must have been sleepwalking and fell down the stairs.” Glancing up the flight with a frown, John realizes it could be much worse. When he looks back down into Sherlock’s puzzled face, he holds him a little tighter. 

“Sleepwalking?” Sherlock’s own frown creases the skin between his eyebrows. Absently, John strokes the pad of his thumb over the spot, trying to wipe away the wrinkles. 

“Yeah,” John replies. “You sleepwalk.” Pausing, he peers closer at Sherlock’s face, watching his pupils adjust and contract to the light, a strong pupillary response and a relief. “You didn’t know?”

Shaking his head makes Sherlock wince. “No. I...had no idea.” The revelation seems to perturb him, and his eyes dart away. “How long…?”

John settles back against the stairs, helping Sherlock sit up beside him, watching for signs of concussion. “Forever. Or, at least, as long as I’ve known you.” He smiles, a small thing that seeps through the easing adrenaline. “Used to scare the shit out of me, you walking out into the sitting room with your eyes closed, muttering about something well beyond me.” His smile turns fond then fades. “You’ve been doing it a lot lately. Nightmares?”

Sherlock nods, his expression shuttered. “You knew. The whole time, you’ve known about the nightmares?”

After a beat, John nods as well. “Yes. You didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so I didn’t press.” Reaching toward his coat, hanging on the rack beside the stairs, stretching his arm with a wince, John digs out a packet of tissues from a pocket and presses a wad to Sherlock’s bleeding forehead. “How do you feel? Any dizziness?”

Sherlock shakes his head slowly, his face still closed-off. “Bit of a headache and a sore knee.” 

Sighing his relief, John maintains pressure on the tissue. “Good. It could have been much worse. Don’t move for a bit, though. Just in case.” 

Sherlock nods and quiet settles between them. Around the time John realizes he is sitting with his flatmate cradled against him, Sherlock’s head nearly resting on his shoulder, the detective speaks, breaking the silence. 

“Will Rosie need her own room soon?”

The question catches John off guard. “Um. Well, not for a while. She’s still a baby. But, eventually? Yeah.” 

“Hmm,” Sherlock hums. He goes quiet once more, and John frowns. As he opens his mouth to speak, Sherlock cuts him off. “Do you think you’ll move out?” 

Blindsided once more, John tilts his head to look into Sherlock’s face. “Do you want us to?” he asks, and Sherlock shakes his head. Watching him, John raises an eyebrow, waiting. Sherlock’s eyes slide away, narrow, then ease and refocus on John again.

“Move into my room,” he says.

Shock ripples over John, his mouth falling open. Closing it, he swallows and wets his bottom lip with his tongue, throat suddenly dry. “I...sorry, what?”

Sherlock shifts, slipping easily out of John’s loose grasp. Wincing, he faces John fully. “I said, move into my room. With me. Unless...” He pauses, voice softer, uncertain. “Not good?”

Shaking his head, John clears his throat. “No, it’s uh. It’s fine. I just...why?”

One of Sherlock’s brows rises, a shadow of his usual sardonic self. “Rosie needs her own room. I need someone to keep me from sleepwalking down the stairs.” He shrugs, eyes glimmering. “A man with a condition such as mine should keep his doctor close, don’t you agree?”

The words settle over John, filtering slowly through a haze of surprise. Wetting his lips again, he offers a hesitant smile. 

“Right. Of course." He tries for a smile and finds it fits. "Glad to hear you actually recognize the importance of following doctor’s orders, for once.”

Grinning, Sherlock replies, “Only a fool argues with his doctor.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did end with a quote from the Sherlock pilot, which was the gayest pilot ever. If you haven't seen it, you _need_ to. Seriously, it's gayer than the entire show put together. 
> 
> Also, _Pelléas et Mélisande_ is an opera about a young woman found lost in the forest and involves a love triangle. I thought it fitting.


End file.
